Integrated notation for software architecture specifications

Currently, there are many notations to specify software architectures, which address a wide range of formality and completeness. Completely formal notations produce accurate and analyzable software architecture specifications, but the most formal and complete notations are also the most difficult to use and understand. Conversely, informal notations are easier to use and understand, but several design aspects may remain underspecified. This paper presents an integrated notation for specifying software architecture that reduces the complexity to use completely formal notations without resigning the formality required by software architecture specifications. The integrated notation proposes an architectural specification in three levels of abstraction: a graphical box-and-line diagram to specify the structure, a behavioral specification using input/output automata, and a basis of Larch traits describing the domain specific abstract data types. The proposed integrated notation has been used to specify the architecture of a complex mesh management tool and part of the specification is presented. Although more experimentation is required, the obtained results are encouraging.